How Much to Charge for Aeration and Overseeding

Aeration is worth selling. Advertisers pay more per click on searches for aeration and overseeding costs than on searches for mowing prices, which tells you the job makes people money.

There are two easy ways to lose on it: pricing it off a guess, and booking it in a month when the grass can't use it.

When the grass wants it

Aerate going into a stretch of active growth, so the grass fills the holes instead of the weeds. That lands in different months depending on the grass.

• Cool-season lawns, like bluegrass, fescue and ryegrass: fall. Illinois Extension calls fall the best time of year to aerate.
• Warm-season lawns, like St. Augustine, bermuda, zoysia and centipede: late spring and summer, while the grass is actively growing. That's Clemson Extension's advice, and it also says to allow at least four weeks of good growing weather afterward.

Seed the same day, or a month later

This is where the extension services don't say the same thing, and it changes your price.

For cool-season lawns, Illinois Extension says to overseed right after aerating. The holes give the seed better contact with the soil, which is what gets it to germinate.

Clemson, writing for Southern lawns, suggests letting the holes heal for about a month before seeding, so the new grass doesn't come in speckled.

So on a cool-season lawn, aeration and overseeding is one visit you can sell as a package. On a warm-season lawn where the customer wants seed, it's two trips, and the second one needs its own price and its own spot on the schedule.

Price it from the clock

Most aeration pricing you'll find is per thousand square feet. It's a reasonable starting quote, and it misses the same things a square-foot mowing price misses: slopes, beds, a narrow gate, a backyard you have to cross twice to reach.

Clemson recommends two passes, the second at a right angle to the first. Count the time for both. Add walking the machine in and out, and the seeding if it's a package. Then price those minutes the same way you price a mow.

Quote core aeration, not spiking. Illinois Extension notes that spike aerators can press the soil together and make compaction worse, which is the opposite of what the customer is paying for.

Ask before the aerator comes off the trailer

Soil conditions decide whether the job happens at all. Illinois and Clemson both say to aerate when the soil is moist but not soaked. Clemson's test is that if the soil sticks to your shoes, wait. LawnMow IT's rain read tracks how much rain fell on each yard since the last cut, which takes some of the guessing out of that call.

Illinois also has a quick way to show a customer the lawn needs it: push a screwdriver into moist soil, and if it won't go in easily, the ground is compacted.

Before you book, ask where the irrigation heads are and whether anything is buried shallow, like dog fence wire or lighting cable. Tines don't care what they hit.

And warn the customer about the cores. Both Illinois and Clemson say to leave them on the lawn to break down. A customer who wasn't told tends to think you left a mess.

Where LawnMow IT helps

Book aeration as a one-time job next to the recurring mows, and put what the crew needs in the job notes: where the sprinkler heads are, the buried dog fence, the gate. Notes show on the crew's job card above the Start button, so they get read before the tines go in.

The crew's Start and Done taps record how long the visit took, so next season's quote comes from this season's time instead of a square-foot guess.

Before and after photos land in the customer's portal with the visit, which helps when somebody looks out at the cores the next morning.

If you hand out door hangers for fall aeration, your quote request page takes the customer's name, address and notes and puts the enquiry on your dashboard.

The short version

Book it while the grass is growing. Seed the same day on cool-season lawns, and give warm-season lawns a month if the customer wants seed. Price both passes from the clock.

Ask about irrigation heads and buried lines before you unload, and tell the customer the cores are supposed to be there.